John Glenn

Mr. GLENN

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I will not object.

Mr. GLENN. Yes, that is correct. That is not in S. 993.

Mr. GLENN. Without losing his right to the floor.

Mr. GLENN. Without losing his right to the floor, fine. What we were doing, we had an amendment that would be voice voted. We are trying to work out the agreement on it, so it will not knock out some of the earlier agreements today. And that is being worked on right now. If we cannot do that tonight expeditiously, we may put that off until tomorrow. That is the reason I had the quorum call in.

Mr. GLENN. I am sorry.

Mr. GLENN. No. Mine would be a separate amendment.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GLENN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I will be very brief. I agree completely with Senator Levin. I think he has taken care of a problem that we discussed at great length on the floor yesterday. We went on and on about this. I will not try to repeat all of those same arguments we made yesterday. I think it is ridiculous to require a report where they can say they cannot make a report. Senator Levin has very properly moved this amendment to take care of that problem. I support it fully. I urge my colleagues to vote for it. It is my understanding that Senator Levin will want a rollcall vote on this but that it will be put off until morning, and as part of the wrap-up by unanimous consent this evening. I yield the floor so that our distinguished colleague from California can get her time. Mr. KEMPTHORNE addressed the Chair.

Mr. GLENN. I will be glad to accept the amendment on our side of the aisle.

Mr. GLENN. I yield the floor.

Mr. GLENN. It is not my--Senator Byrd still has the right to the floor. He retains the right to the floor.

Mr. GLENN. Let me explain this. About 5 hours ago, Senator Boxer sought the floor for an amendment. There was objection on the Republican side to her bringing that up. And she has continually sought the floor on this and tried to work this out--tried to work out the differences with those who objected to her amendment on the other side. It has to do with a statement and with legislation she wanted to make that basically deals with abortion clinics and some protection and so on into those areas. There were some people on the other side who had been negotiating this on behalf of five or six other Senators on the Republican side. Because we are in a situation here where the committee amendments are the things being considered, still technically on the floor, only amendments to that are permitted. So she has been frozen out, as this arrangement has not been able to be worked out. She has thought a number of times this afternoon they had this worked out. She was disappointed each time; it was not worked out. We are told now, maybe after all, maybe it is now worked out so the language in her proposal, her amendment, will now be acceptable to those who disagreed with it on the other side. In the meantime--because only one amendment could apply, under Senate rules, because it is the committee amendment en bloc that we have been working on all this time--there have been continual amendments put in to keep her frozen out by the leadership on the other side. That just is an explanation of exactly what has happened. She feels, I believe now, that they perhaps are within minutes of getting approval, I believe. I do not know whether that approval has been forthcoming or not. They were checking once again for about the sixth or seventh time in the last 4\1/2\ or 5 hours. That is how we got to where we were. I think we have been referring back and forth, one side to the other. I wanted to explain exactly what the situation was and how we got here.

Mr. GLENN. Will the Senator yield without losing his right to the floor?

Mr. GLENN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. GLENN. The agency will void the mandate, the red-flagged language, to the Senator from West Virginia. And rightly so, indicating we would be passing our authority off to an agency when we should not do that. Now, if we come back and look at the actual language in the bill, it is not written quite that way. On page 24, in that second section, starting in the middle of the page, it says basically that the authorizing committee will designate a responsible Federal agency and establish criteria and procedures to direct that if an appropriations act does not provide for the estimated direct costs of such mandate as set forth under subclause 3, such agency shall declare such mandate to be ineffective. It does not say it voids it. It does not pass legislative authority, the way I interpret that, but it just states the obvious. If there is not an appropriation to cover this, that the mandate becomes ineffective as of October of the fiscal year for which the appropriations is not equal to the direct costs of the mandate.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a brief comment?

Mr. GLENN. Then we say there are no appropriations to carry it out. For instance, we require by law a nuclear cleanup in this country. So we say the agency is supposed to go out there--the Department of Energy--and make an assessment of all these places and do a nuclear cleanup. They are supposed to do the best job possible. In some places we will not have money appropriated to do that. The authorization is still there. And in some places we will partially fund that operation. That does not mean that the authorization should come back to Congress and be changed. It just means that the authorization is still there, but we have not been able to provide enough money to do it. So we say, ``Do what you can.''

Mr. GLENN. If the Senator will yield, let me make an analogy here. I think we do this all the time, if it is taken in the light just stated.

Mr. GLENN. There were a number of changes from S. 993 which we brought out of committee last year. A lot of changes were made in S. 1. Most of them, I was part of. This particular change was not in S. 993, and I was not part of this. Let me address this a little different way. The point made is a very good one. The point, basically, is that we are giving away our legislative authority when we say to an agency: You have authority to void something. I think that was probably a poor choice of words in this. What we were trying to cover in these two parts, I believe--and I ask my friend from Idaho to correct me if I am wrong--was to say where the authorizing committee put in a certain amount that in our best judgment was going to take care of this and then there were no appropriations followed up for it, then what happens? Well, what we should have said was that the agency will not be responsible for carrying out the enforcement of this mandate instead of saying the agency has the authority to void what the Congress has done--in that case, where there is no money. That is in the first case. So I think the void-the-mandate language was probably a poor choice of words in this. It was not intended to pass along legislative authority over to an agency. No. 2 says, OK, we authorize certain things in committee to take care of this mandate, but the appropriators did not have all that money. But they said maybe it would have required $100 million. They say, well, we just do not have that; you have $60 million to carry this thing out. In that case, the agency can provide an alternative of less money, of less mandate, but this alternative requires the authorizing legislation to specify clearly how the agency shall implement that alternative. In other words, we would give scaled-back advice if that is necessary. So I think the one that the distinguished colleague from West Virginia cites here, the voiding the mandate, was probably language that should not have been in there to begin with. I think it would have been better if we said if there is no money, then the agency is not required to carry out the mandate. That would not pass authority, to void a legislative act of the Congress over to an agency.

Mr. GLENN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, what is the legislation before us now? Exactly what is the pending business?

Mr. GLENN. The Dole amendment would modify the----